Why You Should Love Your Army

"You loved your Tau army." James said one evening, completely out of the blue.

It turns out that James had been seriously considering starting a Necrons army. But, he was torn over the morality of it all. Grey Knights had unleashed some serious cheese upon the game and having been penned by Matt Ward, the Necrons looked set to be the same.

But of course, James being James, he couldn't bring himself to play an army just for the sake of winning. He has to be enthralled in the story of the army. That's why he stuck with his Thousand Sons through thick and thin. That's why he always held an inane belief that his Space Marines were somehow so much better than other Space Marines, which still baffles me to this day. This is also why he sold his Eldar army a while back, because he just didn't get engrossed in their story or relate to any of the characters.

Where is the Love?
James continued telling me how I should never have sold my army and moved on to play other races, explaining "You liked playing them so much, that you didn't even care about 'being competitive' or if you lost."

And he's quite right. Although I spent a lot of time developing my own army list and a style of play that worked well for me rather than mimicking the tournament meta lists on the internet. So the competitive element was there. I wrote a really great post on why I love playing Tau a while back and in hindsight I should have stuck with the army for these reasons.

But only now that I'm tired of driving metal boxes across the board in a straight line, as fast as I can, and that I'm tired of ultra competitive 40K, have I realised my love for the hobby and what it means to create a completely unique army for yourself.

Finding the Love
I met James at the cafe for breakfast on Saturday. He was already there when I arrived; coffee in one hand, the new Necron Codex in the other and a greasy fried breakfast on the way.

"This is horrible!" he joyfully exclaimed as I sat down...and began reading all manner of nonsensical stuff from the new Necron Codex.

"So you're going to do Necrons?" I asked, feeling rather scornful at the sheer volume of disgusting rules he was reading out.

"I'm not sure," he answered. "I can't figure out a list yet and I want something that's characterful rather than just being all out competitive."

After a hearty fully English breakfast and a wander round Harlow town, we dropped into the local hobby shop so I could pick up a Warmachine starter box and took a look at the new Necron releases.

Tempted as he was, having read the new Necron Codex, James didn't buy anything. But when I remarked that the plastic Necron Overlord from the Command Barge boxed set reminded me of Skeletor, suddenly his interest for the new army was set in motion...

CONCLUSION
I think that we often need to see beyond what Games Workshop provide us with as the basis for an army. Some how we need to add our own inspirations and make an army our own. By including elements from years of playing Turrican, watching Transformers and various mecha anime shows, plus a little feudal Japan history and a Russian inspired military colour scheme (with orange stripes!) I got my Tau army -and they were brilliant!

What will James' Necrons be like? No doubt evil and maniacal if they're going to be led by Overlord Skeletor! I don't know about you guys, but I can't wait to see what he comes up with. But most importantly, he needs to love building, painting and playing his army. Then it doesn't matter if you win or lose, because you're enjoying the game and the story of a game -And that's what this hobby is really all about!

In the meantime, I'm getting some funky urban bases for my first batch of Tau Fire Warriors. Then I'll be continuing with my original Tau colour scheme of military green with orange stripes. It's just one of the many things I loved about my Tau army.